UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

News for Faculty and Staff of the University of California, Riverside

June 25, 2014

Major Changes to Coming to University Avenue and Canyon Crest Drive CorridorMakeover will add sidewalks, bike lanes to improve safety; work to be completed by September

If all goes as planned, University Avenue and Canyon Crest Drive will have a new look this fall – one that will make things safer for the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who use the corridor to access the northern side of campus.

Working with UC Riverside and CalTrans, the City of Riverside will be adding sidewalks, bike lanes and restriping the street along the University Avenue corridor. The work will begin just east of University Village and continue past the intersection with Canyon Crest Drive. It will end at the Bannockburn crosswalk adjacent to Amy S. Harrison Field and Lot 24. The project is scheduled to start in July and be completed by mid-to-late September, in time for both move in and the start of classes.

“Most of these improvements were agreed to by the City of Riverside and UCR more than two years ago, primarily focusing on the pedestrian/bike/car safety issue at University Avenue and the eastbound 60/215 freeway on-ramp,” said Jeff Kraus of UCR’s Government and Community Relations Office. “However, due to the proximity to the freeway on- and off-ramps, the final approval process took two years.”

One of the biggest changes for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists will take place on University Avenue at the 60/215 under-crossing. The project will add a sidewalk and bike lane to the north side of University Avenue, beginning at University Village and running east to the intersection of West Campus Drive and University Av-enue. There the bike lane will connect with the existing south/west-bound lane on Canyon Crest.

As a result of the construction, University Avenue will be re-striped to just one lane for automobile traffic, with dedicated left turn lanes for freeway access.

At West Campus and University, the eastern crosswalk will be removed, allowing cars turning left onto Uni-versity to do so without having to wait for pedestrians.

“These changes should improve the flow of traffic and improve the safety for both pedestrians and cyclists,” said Irma Henderson, manager of the UCR Alternative Transportation Program. “Creating the bike lane will

by Ross French

help eliminate people riding against traffic and the sidewalk will split the pedestrian load.”

The changes on Canyon Crest Avenue include the addition of a two-way bike lane beginning just south of the Bannockburn crosswalk, adjacent to Amy S. Harrison Field. The two-way lane will allow south-bound bi-cyclists to enter the campus at the corner of Canyon Crest and University without having to cut across multiple lanes of traffic. A raised median in the middle of the street will prevent cyclists from cutting across. The lane on the east side of Canyon Crest that handles bike traffic towards University Village will remain intact.

“The goal is to stop cyclists from traveling against the flow of traffic, but to still enable them to easily enter campus at the corner of University and Canyon Crest without having to cut across multiple lanes of the street,” Henderson said. “The bike lanes will be clearly identified with paint markings on the asphalt.”

The project, which is estimated at a cost of $309,029.50, is being funded by a grant from the Riverside County Transportation Commission, with additional funding from the City of Riverside and UC Riverside. The project is anticipated to take 20 working days to complete.

Dallas Rabenstein Retires from UCREVC/Provost spent 29 years as a faculty member and administrator; daughter says that UCR is “dad’s third and most accomplished child”

By Kris Lovekin

UCR has a new endowed fund in chemistry named for Dallas L. Rabenstein, who is retiring from his position as executive vice chancellor and provost this month. His academic career started 46 years ago, with the past 29 years at UC Riverside.

Cynthia Larive, a professor of chemistry and divisional dean at the College of Natural and Agricultural Sci-ences, was one of Rabenstein’s 46 graduate students. She announced that so far, $48,000 has been raised for the fund by alumni, faculty and friends. It will support an annual distinguished lecture series, and it will assist faculty and students in the Department of Chemistry.

“You transformed us from novices to productive and effective scientists, and for that we thank you,” Larive said at Rabenstein’s June 19th retirement party at the Alumni and Visitors Center. The provost, she said, was an understanding and supportive mentor; one who supported women in STEM fields in various ways.

Rabenstein assumed the role of executive vice chancellor and provost in February 2009, at the beginning of a deep recession. According to Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox, Rabenstein was a conscientious steward of UCR’s financial resources during a time of unprecedented budgetary pressure on the University of California system.

He was also instrumental in the creation of “UCR 2020: The Path to Preeminence,” the campus’ long-range strategic plan which compiled the insights of 140 faculty, administrators, students, staff, alumni and commu-nity leaders and which will help set the course for the university throughout the decade.

Rabenstein initially was appointed the position as an interim by then-Chancellor Timothy P. White, with the agreement that he would serve through June of 2010. However, following a pair of nationwide searches and two waves of finalists, the search committee and White agreed that retaining Rabenstein in a permanent capac-ity was “in the best interest of the campus.”

Various people spoke warmly of Rabenstein’s loyalty, work ethic and listening skills. “He is probably the

hardest-working person on the entire campus,” said Marylynn Yates, dean of the College of Natural and Agri-cultural Science. “And we have some hard working people on this campus.”

University Librarian Steve Mandeville-Gamble purchased two books through the UCR library fund so that Rabenstein could be remembered at UCR centuries after his retirement. One was a book on nuclear energy to honor Rabenstein as a chemist, and another on Picasso’s paintings to honor his inner artist. A note in the library’s website and catalogue on the two books will say they were purchased in memory of Rabenstein.

Chancellor Wilcox was effusive in his praise for Rabenstein. “He loves this university,” Wilcox said. “You never have to doubt why he made a decision. The reason is that in his heart of hearts, he believes it is in the absolute best interests of the university. He has great loyalty to faculty, to the university, to the system and to all of us.”

Even Rabenstein’s daughter, Director of Regional Development Lisa Rabenstein, attested to his loyalty to the campus, joking that “After 29 years, UCR was Dallas’s third and most accomplished child.” She described a birthday cake tradition that involved an equation she had to solve before she could blow out the candles. “I had a lot of cakes, with a lot of wax on them,” she said.

A distinguished professor of chemistry, Rabenstein’s research focus is on design, synthesis and character-ization of peptidomimetics. “I got sidetracked into administration,” he said, standing with his wife, Gloria, and his children, Lisa and Mark. “But the experience was wonderful.” He said he accepted the call to serve as execu-tive vice chancellor because he was very passionate about the need for a strategic plan. “It provides a good road map for where UCR needs to be.”

He also said the endowed fund in chemistry was the best possible gift. “It really is a bittersweet moment. It will be a period of adjustment. UCR is at a truly wonderful place.”

Paul J. D’Anieri, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, has been named as Rabenstein’s replacement, and will start on July 1.

Visit GiveNow.ucr.edu and search for the Dallas L. Rabenstein Endowed Fund for Chemistry to make a contribution.

Paul D’Anieri Named Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost of UC RiversideFulbright Scholar and Eastern European expert, Author of International Politics: Power and Purpose in In-ternational Affairs

By James Grant

Paul J. D’Anieri, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, has been named executive vice chancellor and provost of UC Riverside.

The appointment will assign the post to D’Anieri on July 1, fol-lowing the retirement of current EVC/Provost Dallas Rabenstein.

D’Anieri is a political scientist whose expertise is in Eastern Eu-ropean and post-Soviet affairs. His textbook, “International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs,” is in its third edition (Thom-son Wadsworth) and has been called the first truly student-oriented

text in the field. He has served as dean and professor of political science at Florida since 2008. In that post, D’Anieri heads the largest academic unit of the university, with more than 600 faculty members responsible for teaching the majority of the university’s core curriculum to at least 35,000 students each year.

“I am delighted to announce the appointment of Paul D’Anieri to this important leadership position at UC Riverside,” said Wilcox. “He is a seasoned academic administrator, an authoritative scholar, and an inspiring leader who deeply understands the University of California’s mission of providing excellence in research, teach-ing, and public service.”

At UCR, D’Anieri will serve as the chief academic and operating officer for the campus, providing academic leadership to the entire university, managing day-to-day operations of the campus, overseeing resource alloca-tion, and serving as a member of the campus leadership team. In the chancellor’s absence, the provost serves as the chief executive officer of UCR. The provost is responsible for implementation of the campus strategic plan, “UCR 2020: The Path to Preeminence.”

“I am thrilled to be joining the leadership team at UCR,” said D’Anieri. “With great students, faculty and staff and a genuine commitment to diversity and inclusion, Riverside exemplifies the promise that students from wide range of backgrounds can obtain an elite education at a research university.”

In the EVC/Provost position at UC Riverside, D’Anieri will receive a base salary of $325,000 annually.

Paul D’Anieri was awarded a bachelor’s degree in international relations at Michigan State, followed by a master’s and doctorate in government at Cornell University.

In 1991, he was hired as an assistant professor of political science at the University of Kansas and in 1998 he was promoted to associate professor. After the Soviet Union collapsed, D’Anieri won a Fulbright scholarship to Ukraine, where he picked up a third foreign language while working as a visiting scholar at Lviv State Univer-sity. He also speaks Russian and German.

D’Anieri’s research has been centered on the international and domestic politics of the Soviet Union and, in addition to Germany and Ukraine, his studies have taken him to Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.

During the summer of 1998, D’Anieri was a visiting associate professor at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute. He served as associate dean for International Programs at Kansas from 1999 to 2003, direc-tor of the Center for Russian and European Studies in 2003-2004, and associate dean of humanities from 2004 until accepting his position as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

Several Campus Construction Projects Targeting Fall ’14 CompletionProjects include GlenMor 2, SRC expansion, solar farm and overflow parking

By Ross French

As the campus quiets down for the summer months, two large campus construction projects are entering the home stretch, while a handful of smaller projects will get underway shortly, all with a target of being completed before students return in the fall.

The 800-bed, 334,000-square-foot GlenMor 2 Residence Hall project at the corner of Big Springs Road and Valencia Hill Drive is slated to open in September. The facility includes a parking structure, swimming pool, community spaces, academic resource center, computer lab, fitness center and a dining emporium for both residents and nonresidents.

On the north side of campus, the new Student Recreation Center expansion is also nearing completion. The 75,000 gross square foot expansion includes outdoor pool and aquatics facilities, a multiple-use athletics court, indoor jogging track, climbing wall and 20,000 square feet of weight room and cardio fitness facilities. New tennis courts, as well as basketball courts, will be built on the southeast corner of the existing 9-acre complex.

Site preparation on the West Campus Solar Farm was completed in mid-June and crews from SunPower are expected to begin installation of the solar panels on June 23. Ken Mueller, director of UCR Physical Plant, said that the project is on schedule for activation on Sept. 18. When complete, the site will provide the campus with about 3 mw of electrical power.“Things are progressing and we’ll start to see some significant action over the next few weeks,” Mueller said.

Transportation and Parking Services is converting an empty lot across from Lot 30 into a daytime overflow parking lot that can accommodate up to 250 vehicles. The lot will only be open during peak parking periods when other lots are impacted and additional parking is needed on the campus.“The lot will be open to all gold, blue and red permits,” said Andrew Stewart, superintendent for Transportation and Parking Services. “When it is not needed, it will be closed.” Stewart said that the lot’s compacted gravel surface will allow water to perco-late into the soil and recharge underground aquifers, rather than run off into the storm drain system. A stone-lined water retention basin is being built along the north side of the site to provide additional storm water stor-age capacity. The design will keep the site in line with new federal storm water mitigation requirements.“The lot is being constructed to provide additional parking capacity that is needed during larger campus events and to help mitigate the impacts from parking spaces that have been used to provide laydown space for construc-tion projects on campus.The cost of the lot is less than $100,000. It is scheduled to be completed during the summer and will be available for use in Fall 2014.

Congratulations, Class of 2014!More than 5,400 students were eligible to participate in this year’s ceremonies

More than 5,400 students were eligible to participate in the 60th commencement ceremonies at ICR. The university welcomed friends and family to campus for seven ceremonies across four days, from June 13 to 16.

Held on the Pierce Lawn, just east of the UCR bell tower, the ceremonies ranged in size from the intimate Graduate School of Education ceremony to the three separate ceremonies for the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

This year, 5,423 students were eligible to participate in commencement. Of those, 357 graduated cum laude, 141 graduated magna cum laude and 48 graduated summa cum laude. In all, the campus welcomed about 36,500 students and guests over the four days.

Undergraduate Research in the Spring 2014 UCR MagazineOur cover story talks about how UCR is nurturing undergraduates by leading them to research, via campus-sponsored programs and valuable faculty mentorship

By Lilledeshan Bose

In the summer of 2010, My Hua, then a 19-year-old sophomore at UC Riverside, plunged into the sweltering heat and unrelenting humidity of Chennai, India.

She was there with Unite for Sight, a nonprofit that delivers eye care to impoverished villages around the

world. Her experience led to a thirst to do more to address issues of human health.

The answer? “It was research, unexpectedly,” she said.

Four years later she has published her work on the potential harm from e-cigarettes in peer-reviewed journals. Hua is one of the Chancellor’s Research Fellows profiled in the cover story of this Spring 2014 UCR magazine about undergraduate research.

Aided by campus-sponsored programs and valuable faculty mentorship, about 20 percent of all Highland-ers are able to participate in research before they even receive a bachelor’s degree. Our cover story delves into the positive effects of underground research beyond academia.

In this issue, we also take a look at the highlights of Professor Juan Felipe Herrera’s tenure as California Poet Laureate. We herald a brain-training app by UCR Professor Aaron Seitz. Spike Decker of “Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation” tells us why he donated his archives to UCR, and we celebrate Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox’s investiture.

And as always, we have a ton of online extras — videos, slideshows and more — on our website, magazine.ucr.edu.

Read the magazine online, share features on your social networks, view it on your mobile devices and more.

UC Berkeley Administrator Headed to UC RiversideRon Coley will oversee many of the business and support services of the campus

By Kris Lovekin

Ron T. Coley, an associate vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, has been appointed by Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox as UCR’s new vice chancellor for business and administrative services.

Pending approval of UC President Janet Napolitano, his position is effective July 1. He will arrive on cam-pus on July 23.

Coley will oversee a budget of $89 million and about 600 employees working in a wide variety of important campus business and support services, including financial accountability, architects and engineers, human resources, payroll, purchasing, parking, police, environmental health and safety, physical plant, risk manage-ment, and others.

“Ron brings experience, vision, and a commitment to UCR’s institutional values,” Wilcox said. “I believe he will make an enormous contribution to the success of the campus and I look forward to working with him in achieving our goals.” Wilcox expressed his thanks to the search committee and its chairman, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Steve Brint.

Coley said he is looking forward to contributing to UCR’s excellence. ”It is my objective to focus on staff de-velopment in a way that will result in the creation of an atmosphere where teamwork is the norm and efficient and effective support of the academic mission and Chancellor’s priorities is the operative campus expectation.”

Coley joined UC Berkeley in January 1998. Prior to that, he served for six years as a senior county admin-istrator in Orange County. Ron also completed 20 years of active military service from 1972-1992 as a Marine Corps pilot, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During his military career, he helped the Marine Corps

adjust to the changing economic environments caused by the extraor-dinary defense build-ups in the 1980s and the equally drastic draw-downs in the 1990s.

“Throughout my multiple professional careers, one of my primary roles has been to serve as a resource to help the organization and its people cope with the trauma of significant change while, at the same time, steadfastly advancing the objectives of that change,” Coley said.

At UC Riverside, he will earn an annual salary of $295,000.

In 2007, Coley won the Berkeley Staff Assembly’s Excellence in Management Award, which is based on the recommendations of those who work for him.

Among the achievements for which Coley is most proud is the Procurement Initiative that he led which combined the procurement operations of UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco into one department, the result of which has yielded nearly $30 million in savings for each campus. He also envisioned and led the development of the UC system’s UC Ready Continuity Planning Tool, a resource to help the university recover from any emergency.

Coley earned an M.B.A. degree from the Wharton School of Business, majoring in finance and managerial accounting, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Pennsylvania’s Drexel University where, as a student-ath-lete, he majored in business administration and industrial relations. He was later inducted into Drexel’s Ath-letic Hall of Fame. His wife is Soraya Coley, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at California State University Bakersfield.

UC Living Well Program to Host Six-Week “Move More Challenge”Program encourages employees and retirees to get at least 30 minutes of exercise, three days a week

By Ross French

With the intent of improving the health and fitness of employees and retirees, the UC Living Well health and wellness program is sponsoring the Move More Challenge through August 3 at locations across the University of California system.

The six-week challenge is a competition that is open to all employees and retirees who are covered on a UC-sponsored medical plan. Individual and team online registration began on June 10, through the UC Living Well website.

“People want to be more active, but it can be so hard to fit it into their busy schedules,” said UCR Wellness Program Coordinator Julie Chobdee.”The Move More Challenge is a good way for people to get started, to get them motivated, and kickstart them into a more active and healthy lifestyle.”

The goal of the Move More Challenge is to get at least 30 minutes of exercise, three times a week. Partici-pants will be able to keep track of their activity via a program on the challenge website and can compete against colleagues as individuals or as a part of a team. They can also download a free app available called OptumizeMe on iPhone and Android devices that syncs with the challenge to track activity while on the go.

Participation in the challenge is worth 2,500 points towards the 7,500 needed to receive a $75 Visa card through the program.

Chobdee said that while the Move More Challenge is designed to allow participants to work out any time, the Wellness program will be offering events over the course of the summer.

“We are hosting the ‘Stretch Your Summer Challenge‘ that people can participate in during the course of the challenge,” Chobdee said. “And coming in July, Diane Del Buono will be teaching a four-week session of Gentle Yoga.”

Hellman Fellowships AnnouncedSix researchers from CHASS, CNAS and Bourns College of Engineering have been awarded Hellman Fel-

lowships for 2014-2015. Supported by the Hellman Fellows Fund, the UCR Hellman Fellows Program awards fellowships of up to $30,000 to faculty at the rank of assistant professor “who exhibit potential for great dis-tinction in their area of expertise.” The program supports research and creative activities that will promote career advancement.

Hellman Fellows and their research projects are:

Loren Collingwood, assistant professor of political science, for an examination of candidate behavior during periods of emerging voter enfranchisement — specifically minority voter enfranchisement, a project that will analyze campaigns in 11 Southern states between approximately 1930 and 1970.

Understanding the role candidates played during the Civil Rights Movement has been systematically over-looked in the literature, he said. “Therefore, this research will add to our understanding of the political dynam-ics of this era and elucidate the constraints of the relationship between candidates and social movements.”

Secondly, the United States is undergoing a massive demographic realignment as Latino and Asian groups are growing in size and influence throughout the country, Collingwood explained. “The role candidates may play in facilitating or hindering the political incorporation of these groups is crucial to understanding the democratic nature of a more plural and racially heterogeneous society. Thus, the theorizing and empirical analysis embarked upon in this research is foundational for understanding the political impacts of the present demographic shift.”

The $29,000 fellowship will fund research trips to political archives in several Southern states and funding for undergraduate assistance in the coding of historical newspapers.

Kaustabh Ghosh, assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology, for development and evaluation of the potential of a novel injectable, lung-targeting nitroglycerin nanotherapeutic system as a superior treatment modality for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

PAH is a fatal condition where the blood vessels of the lung become constricted and inflamed, resulting in chronic high blood pressure and lung tissue damage. Ghosh proposes to develop a new injectable, lung-targeting nitroglycerin (NTG) nanotherapeutic system that, when administered intravenously, can selectively home to hypertensive blood vessels in the lung and locally deliver low doses of NTG to simultaneously widen constricted vessels and suppress lung inflammation.

The award provides $29,800 for one year that will be used towards graduate student salary support, re-search supplies, travel to national research conferences, and a partial summer salary for Ghosh.

Covadonga Lamar Prieto, assistant professor of Hispanic studies, for research relating to the sociolin-guistic history of Southern California.

The official history of 19th century California was written in English, and it neglected the presence in the territory of Spanish speakers, Lamar Prieto said. “As a consequence, the testimonies of these Spanish speakers remain for the most part unpublished and even undiscovered in different libraries and archives.”

Her project aims to recover a hidden chapter of the sociolinguistic history of Southern California: the dia-lect of Spanish that those Californios spoke, and how this dialect is related to contemporary Spanish language in the area.

The Hellman Fellowship of $25,200 will support visits to libraries and archives that hold testimonies in Spanish written by 19th century Californios. Lamar Prieto’s objective is to build a corpus that describes the va-riety of Spanish used in California in the period before and after the annexation to the United States and, with it, fulfilling a short-term goal of writing a monograph about Spanish in California in the 19th century.

Juchen Guo, assistant professor of in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, for his research on the feasibility of a rechargeable battery with an aluminum negative electrode and sulfur positive electrode.

The project is motivated by finding an alternative to the lithium-ion batteries, since lithium is not an abun-dant resource on earth. Aluminum and sulfur are very abundant elements that are less costly than lithium. Furthermore, the proposed aluminum-sulfur battery has a higher theoretical energy density than the current lithium-ion batteries.

The $29,800 Hellman Fellowship will allow a Ph.D. student to carry out a thorough and fundamental inves-tigation on the electrochemical reactions between aluminum and sulfur.

Robb Hernandez, assistant professor of English, for a book-length study of a queer genealogy of Chicano avant-gardism, an experimental language of Chicano cultural production in Southern California emerging in the late 1960s.

“These artists, notorious for their garish performance personas, provocative visual spectacles, and ‘live art’ embodiments, are obscure in the story of Chicano art due to erasure wrought by a prescient heteronormative vision of the past and the AIDS crisis,” he said. The project requires challenging new forms of fieldwork and the reconstruction of alternative archival bodies and spaces “to show how queerness remains, though scattered in a mélange of dust and debris.”

The $27,634 Hellman Fellowship will support additional research travel to El Museo Del Barrio in New York City, Smithsonian Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C., and the Colección Tloque Nahuaque at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Davidson Library. Hernandez also will conduct extensive inter-views and house visits with surviving friends, family, and artist-colleagues in Palm Springs, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Riviera Nayarit, Mexico. The fellowship also will support professional photo documentation and digital preservation of rare documents, artworks, and domestic interior displays.

Jikui Song, assistant professor of biochemistry, for his research on the enzymatic mechanisms of mamma-lian DNA methyltransferases.

DNA contains combinations of four nucleotides: cytosine, guanine, thymine and adenine. The methyla-tion of mammalian DNA — the addition of a methyl group to cytosine or guanine — has long been recognized to play a major role in helping regulate gene silencing, genomic imprinting and X-chromosome inactivation. Mammalian DNA methyltransferases, a family of proteins, are responsible for establishing and maintaining

DNA methylation patterns. Numerous human diseases have been linked to aberrant DNA methylation pat-terns.

“Structural and functional investigation of mammalian DNA methyltransferases will lead to a better under-standing of the molecular mechanisms of DNA methylation and generate a significant impact on therapeutic intervention of human diseases,” Song said.

The $29,800 fellowship will cover expenses related to his research, including travel, purchase of equip-ment, and lab personnel salaries. Song came to UC Riverside in 2012 from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Can-cer Center, New York.

Getting Personal: Hector LinaresBusiness Operations Manager, Campus Apart-ments, Housing Services and Administration

Like family. That’s how Hector Linares sees his co-workers at UCR Campus Apartments and Family Housing where he’s worked for seven years.

It makes sense, since he’s spent most of his adult life at UCR. It’s where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2007 (he double-majored in English and sociology). Linares went into his job as a business operations manager right after graduation.

As a UCR student, Linares was a commuter. After working with the same Campus Apartments and Family Housing Department his senior year, he realized how much on-campus housing had an impact on the student college experience. Now he dedicates himself in his role as a staffer to give back to the 2,000 residents that he oversees.

“Because I was a student here, I feel like I am a part of the campus community. I was really fortunate enough to have really good mentors and advisors in this department to help me as a student and then, to help me transition into staff,” he said.

“The community invested so much in me. And now I have the chance to give back to UCR.”

The way that Linares gives back is through his hard work as a business operations manager. From property management to budget forecasting to recruitment, there is plenty for Linares to do on a day-to-day basis. There is a new task for him to accomplish every day he steps into his office.

When Linares is not with his UCR family, he is with his family at home, which includes his wife, Timmarie, and his three kids, Adrianne (age 4), Logan (age 2) and Holland (2 months old).

“If I’m not hard at work, I’m hard at play with my family!”

Wellness Ambassadors Foster Healthy Habits at Workby Bethanie Le

In an office setting where one is often just sitting down and staring at a computer screen, healthy habits are often overlooked. Fortunately, the UCR Wellness Ambassador Program makes it easier for UCR staff to main-tain and improve their health by bringing together wellness into the work environment.

Through sponsored events and activities, the UCR Wellness Ambassador Program allows UCR staff to vol-unteer to serve as liaisons of the wellness program in supporting the promotion of health and wellness. Begun in June 2012, the program now has almost 100 members

Wellness ambassadors are responsible for publicizing wellness activities and programs, recruiting faculty and staff to participate in the activities and ultimately to identify strategies to guide the UCR community into a healthier work culture.

Annie Hooper, wellness ambassador and financial analyst, says, “As an ambassador, I feel obligated to make healthy choices throughout the day. From bringing healthy lunches to taking walking breaks, these choices make me feel good about myself and at times even provide an opportunity to de-stress so I can come back renewed and energized to tackle work with a positive outlook.”

Brianna Barrett Wrightsman, an ambassador from the CNAS Dean’s Office, says, “I became a wellness am-bassador after finding out how getting outside and taking care of my body helped me feel more productive and vibrant during the work day. I became an ambassador so I could share that feeling with others and encourage my colleagues to be active at work and take care of themselves.”

Events that the wellness ambassadors hosts includes: Gentle Yoga classes by Diane Del Buono, associate of the chancellor and the wellness ambassador program’s leadership sponsor, avocado tastings, healthy salad potluck lunches and recipe swapping parties. Each wellness ambassador plan events that are catered towards their specific department.

“Our team plans a lot of guided walking tours and those have been very fun. Yoga classes also have been a favorite for me because we move and stretch and laugh as we practice. It’s a fun way to meet others in your unit who have an interest in healthy practices for daily living,” said Virginia Odien, an administrator from the Office of Strategic Communications.

To join and to be part of this life-changing program, sign up with Julie Chobdee, the wellness program coor-dinator, at julie.chobdee@ucr.edu or 951-827-1488.88.

Reseach and ScholarshipBalandin Named UC Presidential Chair Professor

Alexander A. Balandin, a professor of electrical engineering and founding chair of Materials Science and Engineering Program, has been named a University of California Presidential Chair Professor.

The purpose of the title is to encourage new or interdisciplinary program development or to enhance qual-ity in existing academic programs of the university. Recipients receive annual funding to support instructional activities, research, or other creative activities of the chair holder.

The title and extra funding will allow Balandin to elevate phononics and graphene thermal research at UC Riverside to a new level.

Balandin is recognized internationally for his discovery of the unusual thermal properties of graphene and two-dimensional crystals, development of new experimental technique for the investigation of thermal proper-ties of samples with atomic-layer thickness and theoretical explanation of the unique features of the thermal transport in graphene.

Mironko Book Published

“Determinants of FDI Flows within Emerging Economies,” a book written by Arkadiusz Mironko, executive director for graduate programs at the Anderson Graduate School of Management, was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan.

The book provides a detailed examination of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Poland and explores the im-pact this has on foreign investment policy. The book analyzes and identifies the location patterns of FDI across different regions in Poland and strives to determine the supporting motives behind location choices of foreign companies. The study also identifies the leading foreign firms present in Poland and examines whether their presence has an effect on the location choices of smaller foreign firms from the same industry.

Mironko teaches courses in global competition and business strategy. His current research interests are in the areas of foreign direct investment strategy, global business strategy, global competition, developing econo-mies, and knowledge creation and transfer in multinational corporations.

Maciejovsky Wins Best Paper Award

Boris Maciejovsky, an assistant professor of management in the School of Business Administration, won the American Psychological Association Division 21 Raymond S. Nickerson Award for Best 2013 Paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

The paper, written with David Budescu, a professor at Fordham Unjiversity, is called “Verbal and numerical consumer recommendations: Switching between recommendation formats leads to preference inconsisten-cies.”

Maciejovsky and Budescu have been invited to deliver an oral presentation as part of the Division 21 pro-gram at the 2015 annual American Psychological Association meeting in Toronto.

Seitz Paper in Journal of Neuroscience

A paper by Aaron Seitz, professor of psychology, and former UCR graduate student Shao-Chin Hung that attempts to resolve a recent controversy in perceptual learning is a featured article in the June 18 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Training on a perceptual task, such as judging whether two line segments are collinear, leads to improved performance. The mechanisms of this learning are highly controversial with recent studies finding very differ-ent patterns of results than classical research on the topic, the journal wrote.

“Although such training could conceivably aid rehabilitation after injury, most studies have found that

improved performance is limited to the specific task and, in the case of visual perceptual training, the retinal lo-cation where training stimuli are presented. Some recent studies, however, have found that training generalizes to an untrained region under some circumstances, for example when a different perceptual task (e.g., orienta-tion discrimination) is trained in the other region.”

In “Near-Threshold Stimuli Reduce Training Generalization,” Hung and Seitz wrote that they found a simple explanation for differences in the generalization of perceptual training in different studies: the studies use different training procedures.

“Specifically, they found that the extent to which improvement transferred to a different region depended on how many near-threshold stimuli were presented during training,” the journal wrote. “For multiple stimulus types, increasing the number of near-threshold stimuli reduced generalization. The data suggest that different types of training improve performance via different neural mechanisms.”

Hung, who is the lead author of the paper, is a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University’s Laboratory of Integrated Brain Imaging.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health.

Immortality Researchers Collaborate at UCR

Preliminary results of scientific research related to immortality – such as phenomena related to near-death experiences, immortality in virtual reality, and genes that prevent a species of freshwater hydra from aging – were presented at a conference for researchers hosted by The Immortality Project at UCR on June 20-21.

The conference, “The Science of Immortality,” brought together members of 10 international teams that received grants totaling $2.4 million last year from The Immortality Project to collaborate with other research-ers about their work in progress.

The Immortality Project is funded with a $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Guantánamo Exhibition Opens in Capitol June 23

The Guantánamo Public Memory Project, a collaboration of 15 universities that includes the University of California, Riverside, brought a unique exhibit to the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., on, June 23. The traveling exhibit revealed the 100-year history of the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The project included interviews, images, documentary material, video footage, and artwork about the naval base from the 19th century to today. It sought to build public awareness of the long history of GTMO, as the U.S. military calls the base, and foster dialogue about the future of the place and the policies it shapes. UC Riv-erside’s Public History Program was a founding member of the consortium.

The exhibit is part of a national tour involving 17 cities. One of the early stops was in Riverside at UCR ARTSblock in summer 2013. The tour will continue to Miami, New Orleans, Providence, and Boston.

Popular Regional Science Meeting BroughtHundreds of Scientists to UC Riverside

The 95th annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence (AAAS) took place at UCR for only the second time in the past 50 years. The meeting, a popular gather-ing of scientists from the western states in the country, was a four-day event: June 17-20. Approximately 500 scientists from nearly 30 research institutions were expected to attend the meeting organized loosely around

the theme “Innovation for a Changing World.”

The four-day meeting covered topics ranging from nature photography to World War II anthropology to 3D printing. Climate change, the past history of life, the ecology and conservation in river networks and the mechanisms of tumor progression and cancer therapy were also on the agenda along with a host of trending topics.

Mirandé Book Finds That Connection to Native Community in Mexico Fuels Success for Immigrants in Tur-lock, Calif.

For generations, immigrants from the Mexican town of Jalostotitlán, Jalisco, have migrated between their native community — which they call “Jalos” — and Turlock in California’s Central Valley.

A new book by UCR sociologist Alfredo Mirandé, “Jalos USA: Transnational Community and Identity” (University of Notre Dame Press), examines this circular pattern of migration and how the ability of these mi-grants to stay connected to their native roots facilitates success in the United States.

Mirandé made numerous trips to Turlock and Jalostotitlán beginning in 2006 to observe and interview migrants who identify themselves as “being from Jalos.” Among others, he interviewed youth in Jalos and Tur-lock, as well as priests and social service providers.

Smiley to Join UCR Faculty

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jane Smiley, author of the best-selling “A Thousand Acres” and many other highly regarded books, has accepted a faculty appointment at the University of California, Riverside as distin-guished professor of creative writing. Her appointment is effective July 1.

She joins a department that includes the current California Poet Laureate and authors whose works of fic-tion and nonfiction are best-sellers and award-winners.

“Jane Smiley is a distinguished novelist and essayist whose talent extends beyond writing and into the classroom,” said Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. “As a writer, she challenges us to consider what it means to be human. As a teacher and scholar, she challenges students how to articulate those questions in ways that are both compelling and enlightening. We are very pleased that she will join an exceptional department whose faculty are committed to excellence in both writing and teach-ing.”

Andrew Winer, chair of the Department of Creative Writing, said, “We’re thrilled to have Jane Smiley join our department of nationally and internationally recognized writers. A true giant in her field, Jane Smiley is in a small, select group of America’s most important living writers, and her reputation follows her all over the world. She’s without question one of our greatest storytellers, and she writes with a classic sense of humanity and compassion that have made her name part of any serious conversation about fiction in our time.”

The best-selling author also is a gifted teacher “who shares our commitment to providing first-rate, practi-tioner-based instruction to all of our students, no matter where and what background they come from,” Winer said. “Jane Smiley wants to share what she knows about literature and how to write it, and our students are go-ing to benefit from that same wonderful combination of intelligence, curiosity and wit that pervades her fiction. This generous spirit of hers, when combined with her widely celebrated career, her award-winning books, and her distinguished teaching record, makes her a perfect fit for us and for UCR.”

Parker Presents Research

Robert Nash Parker, professor of sociology and senior researcher at the Presley Center for Crime and Jus-

tice Studies, presented a research on the effect of Ontario, Calif., police interventions focused on the impact of alcohol on crime at the annual meeting of the Kettil Bruun Society in Turino, Italy in early June.

Parker is a member of the Coordinating Council, the society’s governing body, a three-year position to which he was elected in 2012.

In July, he will attend the World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, Japan, where he will present a paper about his collaboration with the Indio Police Department to produce a computer model that predicted where burglaries were most likely to occur. Interventions resulting from that computer model have significantly re-duced the burglary rate in the Coachella Valley city.

Parker is the elected president of the Research Committee 29 of the International Sociological Association (ISA), which sponsors the World Congress of Sociology every four years. The committee has organized 14 pan-els with 59 papers to be presented at the event, which will be held July 13-19. The ISA is the largest organiza-tion of sociologists in the world.

Awards and HonorsCNAS Names New Chief Financial Officer

Dean Marylynn Yates announced that Jennifer Farias has been named the new chief financial and adminis-trative officer for the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, effective July 1. She replaces Millie Garrison, who will be retiring on June 27.

Farias has been CNAS’s manager of financial operations for nearly five years.Previously she was the finan-cial and administrative officer for the Department of Entomology.

Herrera Delivers Commencement Address at UCLA

California Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, professor of creative writing, delivered the commencement address for the UCLA Department of Anthropology on June 14.

Herrera earned a B.A. in social anthropology from UCLA, an M.A. in social anthropology from Stanford University, and an M.F. A. in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

History Ph.D. Graduate Wins Prestigious Fellowship

Carlos Dimas, who completed his Ph.D. in history this month, has won the prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Americas for Latin American Studies.

The fellowship, for which approximately 250 scholars of Latin America applied, provides a stipend for living expenses and a budget for research and travel to conferences. It will support Dimas as he turns his dissertation about the impact of cholera epidemics in 19th century Argentina into a book.

Dimas’ research is poised to profoundly influence scholarship in the emerging field of the history of disease and medicine in Latin America, said James Brennan, professor and chair of the UCR Department of History.

Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize Announced

The Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies (SFTS) program at the University of California, Riverside announces that the second annual SFTS book award has been won by David Wittenberg, professor of English,

comparative literature, and cinematic arts at the University of Iowa, for “Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative” (Fordham UP, 2013).

The prize honors an outstanding scholarly monograph that explores the intersections between popular culture, particularly science fiction, and the discourses and cultures of technoscience. The award is designed to recognize groundbreaking and exceptional contributions to the field. Books published in English between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2013, were eligible for the award.

Wittenberg’s book argues that time travel fiction “is a laboratory in which the most fundamental theoreti-cal questions of narratology, history, and subjectivity are rehearsed,” said Sherryl Vint, co-director of the SFTS program and jury chair. “It is discerning in its critical insights, disciplined in its case studies, and broadly inclu-sive across media in its examples. ‘Time Travel’ shows Wittenberg to be one of the most astute among contem-porary sf critics.”

Jury members were Vint, Anindita Bannerjee of Cornell University, and Pawel Frelik of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Poland.

ARTSblock Awarded $125,000 Grant for “Critical Utopias: The Art of Futurismo Latino”

When 46 collaborative exhibitions and events funded by The Getty Foundation open in fall 2017, UC River-side scholars will figure prominently in an ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art.

The Getty Foundation awarded $5 million in May to arts institutions across Southern California for re-search and planning of its “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA” initiative, which will present 46 exhibitions and events from San Diego to Santa Barbara. “LA/LA” is the second iteration of the Getty’s “Pacific Standard Time” initiative; the first focused on art in Los Angeles from 1945-1980 and was an unprecedented collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the LA art scene. In 2013, a smaller scale program, “Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.,” explored the built heritage of the Los Angeles region.

UCR ARTSblock received a $125,000 research grant for “Critical Utopias: The Art of Futurismo Latino,” an exhibition of work by contemporary Latin American and Latino artists who employ science fiction for social, cultural, and political critique. There will be additional implementation awards for the exhibition and book after the research phase. UCR ARTSblock received a $72,000 implementation grant for the initial “Pacific Stan-dard Time: 1945-1980” in 2010 for the exhibition “Seismic Shift: Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal and California Land-scape Photography.”

Arts and humanities faculty also will help research an exhibition of the Riverside Art Museum, an inde-pendent museum two blocks from UCR ARTSblock, which received $75,000 for “Spanish Colonial Revival in the Inland Empire,” an examination of the architecture that has been part of the aesthetic fabric of the Inland Empire for 100 years.

Carlos Cortés, professor of history emeritus, is part of the advisory board conducting research for the Acad-emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences film project, “From Latin America to Hollywood: Latino Film Culture in Los Angeles 1967-2017.”

“With its historical roots in Latin America and its diverse population, Los Angeles embraces a global cul-ture,” said Jim Cuno, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “In a way that is possible only in Los Ange-les, ‘Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA’ raises complex and provocative issues about present-day relations between north and south and the rapidly changing social and cultural fabric of Southern California.”

Who Says?“Never give up, really hold on to your dreams, because as long as you’re able to stick through it and perse-

vere, you will accomplish your goals.”

Festus Ohan, UCR alumnus, on his experiences in the foster care system and how he overcame countless difficulties to gain acceptance into nine prestigious medical schools across the country

CLUTCH MAGAZINE

“We would spend 30 minutes on 15 lines of Tennyson. At first, I considered this a waste of time … but once I slowed down to his pace, I realized this was poetry from the inside, poetry as line, syllable, and ultimately, pleasure.”

Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate and UCR alumnus, on the passing of Robert Peters, a Victorian literature scholar, poet and critic who died after a three-decade career at the University of California

LOS ANGELES TIMES

“Certainly the main effect of the drought is to bring the fire season forward earlier than usual, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to have a severe burning season.”

Richard Minnich, professor of earth sciences, on his predictions for Southern California’s fire season

KPCC

“He’s communicating not only directly to the fans who know what happened and aren’t happy about it. But he’s also showing that in general, the U.S. World Cup isn’t at the place it should be. … We know what the posi-tion is in relationship to basketball and football and baseball. We’re sort of this European, effeminate sport in comparison. So, any kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge acknowledgment of that works because it includes us in the joke.”

Derek Burrill, associate professor of media and cultural studies, on how Landon Donovan, L.A. Galaxy soccer player, used his exclusion from the 2014 World Cup to spearhead a successful marketing campaign

PRESS-ENTERPRISE

“I’m looking forward to seeing the scientific advances that they come up with. This is exactly the kind of sci-entific leadership that UC Riverside has been encouraging and supporting This project will lay the groundwork for energy technology for the nation.”

Michael Pazzani, vice chancellor for research and economic development, on the inclusion of a UC River-side-led research project in the Energy Frontier Research Centers, which are designed to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and support the U.S. economy through energy research

ELECTRO IQ

“Basically, when a ball is spinning there is a force on one side of the ball which is bigger than on the other side and that causes it to curve. Soccer players, the really good ones, work very hard on being able to kick the ball both very hard so they can get it going fast, but also with a lot of spin so you get that curve ball.”

Robert Clare, professor of physics, on the Magnus effect and how it can be observed in sports such as soc-

cer

NPR

“This is a good first glimpse of how graphene might behave in the water supply.”

Sharon Walker, associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering, on her research into gra-phene, which shows that the nanomaterial may pose risks to the environment if spilled in surface water

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Did You Know?Butt Litter on Campus on the Rise

Sustainability interns who scour the campus for cigarette butts found that since the implementation of the tobacco ban in January, butt litter dropped, and then went up. Last quarter, the sustainability team collected 1,388 cigarette butts. During the first week of March, only 544 cigarette butts were collected. In May for Butt Bash 3, around 813 cigarette butts were collected on campus.

The increase in litter has been found in bushes, under piles of leaves, and hidden areas.

To address this, UCR Wellness Program Coordinator Julie Chobdee said, “We need the help of the entire UCR campus community to ensure the success of the smoke/tobacco-free policy. It is the responsibility of all staff, faculty, and students to comply with the policy and to education and inform those not in compliance. We hope that everyone will be proactive and contribute to a healthy, safe, and cleaner UCR.”